Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 25, November 1859 | Page 4

transatlantic visitor, as
he roams at twilight around the venerable castle "flanked with towers,"
traces the dim fresco in a church Giotto decorated, reads "Parisina" in
Byron's paraphrase near the dungeons where she and her lover were
slain, or gazes with mingled curiosity and love on the chirography of St.
Chrysostom, the original manuscripts of Tasso, Ariosto, and Guarini, or
the inscription of Victor Alfieri in the Studio Publico. It is because

Calvin was here sheltered, and Olympia Morata found sympathy and
respect,--because the author of "Jerusalem Delivered" here loved,
triumphed, and despaired, and the author of the "Orlando Furioso" so
assiduously labored for his orphaned family, the exacting Cardinal
Ippolito, and the cause of learning, and strung a lyre which has for
centuries vibrated in the popular heart and fancy,--because, in a word,
Ferrara contains the prison of Tasso, and the home of Ariosto, who
called her "_città bene avventurosa_," as did Tassoni the "_gran donna
del Po_,"--that the desolate old city is revived to the imagination, with
its hundred thousand people, its gay courtiers and brave knights, the
romance of its feats of minstrelsy and arms whereat noble beauties and
immortal bards assisted, and Art, Chivalry, Learning, Church, and State
held festival with the Muses to adorn and perpetuate the transient
pageant, the loveliness, and the rule,--otherwise since consigned to the
monotonous record of vanished pomp and arbitrary sway.
When Napoleon fell, Foresti was a student at the University of Bologna,
whence he returned to his native capital, after obtaining the degree of
Doctor of Laws. His earliest forensic labors, like those of our young
advocates, were in the defence of accused criminals; and, limited as is
this sphere, he must have displayed unusual maturity of judgment and
natural eloquence, to have received successively the eminent
appointments of Provisory Assistant Judge in the Court of Justice of
Ferrara, Supplementary Professor of Eloquence and Belles Lettres in
the Lyceum, and Judge of the Peace, by virtue of which latter office he
crossed the Po to practise at Polesino,--wisely preferring the Austrian
to the Papal jurisdiction. In Crespino, in the province of Rovigo, in the
Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, Foresti was made Praetor under the
Emperor's warrant. Coincident with this recognition of his judicial
knowledge and skill, was a kindred appreciation on the part of his
liberal and patriotic countrymen; they beheld in the vigorous and
disciplined mind and generous heart of Foresti, in his civic wisdom and
courage, the representative and ally they sought in this portion of their
beautiful and unhappy land. To disseminate the principles and secure
the cooperation of Venice became the special office of the Carbonari
leaders of Ferrara, and they had only to reveal the high and holy object
they cherished, to one who so well knew the wants and woes of his
country as Foresti, to enlist his adventurous sympathy. The delicate and

difficult mission, fraught with the dearest prospects of Italy, was nearly
consummated, when a treacherous colleague revealed to the accredited
agents both of Austria and the Pope the system of this mysterious
revolutionary combination in and around Ferrara. The latter shrank
from extreme measures, and was content with an oath of retraction; but
the Austrian government gave instant orders to the chiefs of police,
both there and at Venice, to arrest those whom the perjured Count Villa
named as adherents of Carbonarism. The decree was executed with
military force; and, without warning, preparation, or even a parting
interview with their families and friends, the suspected were hurried off
to the Piombi, that Venetian prison so graphically described by Pellico.
All correspondence and personal intercourse was denied. Meantime, an
ingenious and persevering investigation went on, to ascertain the scope
of the enterprise thus summarily baffled, the means proposed, and the
individuals implicated. To complicate still further the situation of the
victims, in other quarters the flame they had secretly fed burst forth
conspicuously; Naples and Piedmont were in arms; and Austria
conceived an alarming idea of the national spirit she had partially
contravened. The rigor of espionage towards the imprisoned and their
friends increased; the prosecution was insidiously prolonged; privation
and solitude, vigilance and suspense were made instruments for
subduing the resolution and invading the confidence of the captives;
they pined in desolation, ignorant of their fate, uninformed of the
welfare of those most dear to them, without resources of defence or
consolation, except what the strength of individual character yields;
physically weakened, morally isolated; sometimes roused from sleep
and bewildered with questions; at other times told they were to die, that
some companion had confessed, or that some loved one had ceased to
exist;--and all these crises of feeling and anxiety, of surprise and
despair, induced with a fiendish deliberation, to startle honor into
self-betrayal, wring from exhausted Nature what conscious rectitude
would not